CCM adopts new procedure for picking candidates for next elections

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The Central Committee will pick three names that will be voted at a constituency meeting estimated have between 800 and 1,000 members, Mr Polepole said.

Dar es Salaam. CCM yesterday revealed new procedure for nominating parliamentary candidates ahead of the 2020 General Election, and warned aspirants to wait until the National Assembly is dissolved.
Previously, those seeking to contest parliamentary seats had to go through wards in their respective constituencies for primary voting by party members.
However, ideology and publicity secretary Humphrey Polepole said the new system allows aspirants to pick up and fill in nomination forms from their party district offices, and vetting will be done by the political committee in the respective district, which will forward their rating to the regional committee.
The regional political commit-tee will also forward assessment of the aspirants to the secretariat of the party’s National Executive Council (NEC) which will also send their rating to the Central Committee.

The Central Committee will pick three names that will be voted at a constituency meeting estimated have between 800 and 1,000 members, Mr Polepole said.
The votes on the three names will also be assessed from the constituency and later regional political committees and finally to the NEC under the party’s chairman, President John Magufuli, which will decide on the party candidate.
“We will not allow noise and other kinds of campaign-like support and groupings during the process until the candidate is announced,” he said.
Mr Polepole added that the new approach was aimed at curbing corruption and increasing vetting of the candidates whom the party said must meet the desired qualities.
He said the procedure applied in 2015 created loopholes for aspirants to violate some legal and ethical conducts.
“I’m reminding members and especially those who wish to contest that the doors will be opened once Parliament is dissolved. A timetable will be released later,” Mr Polepole said adding that those declaring intentions now were already violating the procedure.

Tanzanians will go into the General Election to elect the president, members of parliament and councillors in October, this year.
National Assembly Speaker Job Ndugai said recently that the current Parliament will dissolve on June 19 after the current sitting which will also approve the budget for the next financial year.
Mr Polepole said the party will issue its timetable for events related to elections after Parliament is dissolved and the programme will match with that of the National Electoral Commission (Nec).
He warned all aspirants currently organising groups of supporters, dishing out money and other such related activities as violating the new procedure and risk being arrested by the anti-corruption body and be disqualified.
He said CCM had also registered a WhatsApp number announced to the public for receiving infor-mation about people who were violating party procedures in the districts and constituencies.
Mr Polepole further hinted that the party’s presidential candidate was already known based on CCM’s long held tradition of allow-ing the incumbent to complete two terms of five years each.